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Job and J.B.: The Goodness of God or the Godness of Good?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2014
Abstract
This article examines the “Message” of J.B. on the basis of internal evidence from the play and direct comments by its author, Archibald MacLeish. The conclusion is that the play dismisses God as a significant factor in human experience and substitutes human love as providing an island of meaning. A reading of Job, based on the thesis that the work is ironical throughout, comes to a similar conclusion that the final author/redactor of Job also dismisses God but that he provides no new island of meaning for humanity. Thus MacLeish may be nearer to the mainstream of the canonical tradition than the final text of Job.
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References
1 Cited in Esquire, May 1959, p. 144.Google Scholar
2 ”The Birth of a Classic,” Saturday Review, March 8, 1958, pp. 11–12, 48.Google Scholar
3 A representative sample is conveniently collected in Hone, Ralph, The Voice Out of the Whirlwind: The Book of Job (San Francisco: Chandler, 1960), pp. 276–310.Google Scholar
4 This is the title of an article by MacLeish on his understanding of what he has done in J.B. and its relationship to the biblical book of Job: New York Times, December 7 1958, sec. 2, pp. 5, 7.Google Scholar
5 Quotations from J.B., unless otherwise noted, are from the Houghton Mifflin edition (Boston: 1958). To reduce excessive footnotes I have placed the pagination in the text.
6 For the Broadway text I have used Gassner, John, Best American Plays, 5th Series, 1957–1963 (New York: Crown, 1963), pp. 589–633.Google Scholar Again to avoid excessive footnoting, appropriate pagination of this version is placed in the text.
7 Kazan, Elia, Esquire, May 1959, p. 157.Google Scholar
8 Ibid., p. 149.
9 Ibid., p. 154.
10 MacLeish, Archibald, “The Book of Job,” The Christian Century, April 8, 1959, pp. 419–22.Google Scholar Pagination for quotations are in the text. The affirmation that God has need of humans is reminiscent of Jung's, Answer to Job (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., 1954)Google Scholar, but there is little or no similarity in the two developments of the idea.
11 MacLeish, Archibald, Esquire, May 1959, p. 158.Google Scholar
12 MacLeish, Archibald, “The Men Behind JB,” Theater Arts, April 1959, pp. 61–63.Google Scholar
13 MacLeish, Archibald, The Christian Century, April 8, 1959, p. 420.Google Scholar
14 MacLeish, Archibald, “Trespass on a Monument,” p. 5.Google Scholar
15 MacLeish, Archibald, Theater Arts, April 1959, p. 61.Google Scholar
16 Space does not permit even mentioning the range of literary solutions which have been proposed. Rowley's, H. H. “The Book of Job and Its Meaning,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 41 (1958–1959), 167–207CrossRefGoogle Scholar, contains an almost exhaustive summary up to that time and remains indispensable. It may be supplemented by the introductions to the commentaries of Georg Fohrer (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1963); Pope, Marvin, Anchor Bible, 3rd ed. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978);Google ScholarRobert Gordis (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1978).Google ScholarSnaith, Norman, The Book of Job (London: SCM, 1968Google Scholar) provides a useful summary of the divergent views of the literary stages of the book. The periodical literature is enormous and I shall call attention below to the major contributions to the thesis here proposed. Finally, attention may be called to Crenshaw, J. L., Old Testament Wisdom (Atlanta, GA: John Knox, 1980)Google Scholar and Murphy, R. E., Wisdom Literature (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1977)Google Scholar who set forth the best of recent technical scholarship for the nontechnical reader.
17 This, of course, has been the procedure of literary critics. Northrop Frye's comments are illustrative: “I am trying to make sense of the book of Job as we have it, on the assumption that whoever was responsible for its present version had some reason for producing that version. Guesswork about what the poem may originally have been is useless, as it is only the version we know that has had any influence on our literature” (The Anatomy of Criticism [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957], p. 189).Google Scholar
18 While in the long run the three friends andElihu do affirm the truth of the Doctrine of Retribution, the righteous prosper and the wicked suffer, there are considerable nuances. That suffering is a test is sometimes affirmed and almost always there is the assurance that the sufferer may repent and be restored. The following passages are illustrative though not comprehensive: 4:7–9; 5:17–27; 8:3–4; 11:13–20; 15:14–35; 18:5–21; 20:2–29; 34:10–15. On the other hand, Job again and again repudiates the teaching: e.g., 10:15; 21:2–21; all of chapter 24.
19 This is the text of a chapter heading found in many editions of the King James Version.
20 Carstensen, R. N., Job: in Defense of Honor (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1963), p. 91.Google Scholar
21 The deletion of the Yahweh speeches altogether, a practice adopted by some earlier commentators, has found little favor in recent criticism. See the article by Rowley cited in note 16 above.
22 In this and the notes immediately following I shall cite only representative opinions. Full bibliographical details are available in the works referred to. The position here mentioned is forcefully argued by Rowley in the afore cited article and in his commentary.
23 See, e.g., Murphy, R. E., Wisdom Literature, p. 20.Google Scholar
24 Frost, Robert, Complete Poems (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964, c. 1962), pp. 589f.Google Scholar
25 Above all in his Book of God and Man (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965) and in his commentary cited in note 16.Google Scholar
26 Dermot Cox's treatment of Job within the context of the theater of the absurd is highly suggestive (The Triumph of Impotence: Job and the Tradition of the Absurd [Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1978]).Google Scholar While we cannot deal here with his presentation, it may be appropriate to note that he assumes that Job finds meaning in spite of the absurdity of the human condition.
27 Strahan, J. L., The Book of Job (Edinburgh: Clark, 1913), p. 332.Google Scholar
28 Terrien, Samuel, Interpreter's Bible (New York: Abingdon, 1954), 3: 877–1198;Google ScholarJob: Poet of Existence (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957);Google ScholarGood, Edwin, Irony in the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1965).Google Scholar
29 The quotations are, respectively, from Terrien, , Job: Poet of Existence, p. 235Google Scholar, and Good, , Irony, pp. 239–40.Google Scholar
30 Williams, J. G., “You Have Not Spoken Truth of Me,” Zeitschrift Fuer die Alt-testamentliche Wissenschaft 83 (1971), 231–55.Google Scholar
31 Ibid., p. 247. Since writing the article cited, Williams has moved toward interpreting irony in Job in terms of the genre of comedy. See Hebrew, Union College Annual 49 (1978), 59–72.Google Scholar Recently there have been other proposals along the line of utilizing comedy as a clue for Joban interpretation. See especially Whedbee, J. W., “The Comedy of Job,” Semeia 7 (1977), 139Google Scholar, who draws upon the critical judgments of Northrop Frye and Christopher Fry to maintain the comic interpretation. Further investigation of the ironic dimensions of Job as comic or as here interpreted warrant careful consideration.
32 Robertson, David, The Old Testament and the Literary Critic (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977).Google Scholar An earlier version may be found in Soundings 56 (1973), 446–69.Google Scholar
33 The interpretation of these passages and their function in the book of Job are much disputed. In addition to the commentaries referred to, see the comprehensive summary by John Gammie, “Behemoth and Leviathan: On the Didactic and Theological Significance of Job 40:15-41:26” in Gammie, John G., ed., Israelite Wisdom: Theological and Literary Essays in Honor of Samuel Terrien (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1978), pp. 217–31.Google Scholar
34 The quotations are from The Old Testament and the Literary Critic, pp. 53, 54, and 54 respectively.
35 It seems to me that the next necessary exegetical step in testing the thesis here proposed is to explore the extent to which certain passages already seen as discretely ironical, e.g., Job's suggestion that the friends are speaking deceitfully of God (13:7-12) and God's condemnation of them in the Epilogue; Eliphaz' call to Job to make prayer for himself (22-27) as contrasted with Job's praying for his friends in the Epilogue, may fit into the larger ironical perspective here proposed. Above all, I suggest pursuing the uses of the root brk (bless, curse, dismiss,” hnm “without cause, gratuitously,” and tmm “upright” in various contexts and with different nuances. My preliminary research along these lines strengthens the ironic interpretation, but they await completion and collegial criticism.
36 By a “true” reading I mean one which is congruent with the text. The “true” reading would be one demanded by the text. That claim is not being made.
37 Representative proponents of each of these views, with various modifications, may be found in Rowley's article cited above and in the commentaries referred to.
38 Fohrer, , Das Buch Hiob, p. 539.Google Scholar
39 So, e.g., Pope, , Job, p. 350;Google ScholarBarr, James, “The Book of Job and Its Modern Interpreters” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 54 (1971–1972), 46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
40 Job's response in 42:5-6 is crucial for any interpretation. Robertson characterizes it as “tongue in cheek” (p. 52) and many commentators call attention to the problems of translating the roots m's and nhm in the traditional despise and repent of the English versions. In addition to the commentaries cited, see Curtis, John, “On Job's Response to Yahweh,” Journal of Biblical Literature 98 (1979), 497–511;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPatrick, Dale, “The Translation of Job XLII, 6,” Vetus Testamentum 26 (1976), 365–71;Google ScholarKuyper, L. J., “The Repentance of Job,” Vetus Testamentum 9 (1959), 91–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The extent to which the ironical interpretation can be sustained will depend to a considerable degree upon how these verses are read.
41 The picking up of life is also mentioned by Greenberg, Moshe, The Book of Job (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1980), p. xxiiGoogle Scholar, though he is much more positive about God's role in Job's reconstituting his life. In an article which I have not seen, P. A. H. DeBoer seems to follow this line. Old Testament Abstracts 1 (1978), p. 259Google Scholar, summarizes the article as follows: “He [Job] does not recant; he simply forswears the dust and ashes of mourning and enters upon a new stage of life.”
42 Van Dusen, Henry P., “Third Thoughts on J.B. and Job,” The Christian Century. January 28, 1959, p. 107.Google Scholar
43 Priest, John, “The Goodness of God or the Godness of Good,” Ohio Wesieyan Magazine 39 (1962), 4.Google Scholar
44 I would emphasize again that even if the ironical reading proposed be allowed it cannot of course be taken as normative for the biblical tradition as a whole. It, along with, e.g., the nihilism of Koheleth and the nationalism of Nahum must be read in the total context of all the writings which have become scripture for Jews and Christians. Further, the function of the book of Job in those communities has a life of its own, quite apart from the intention of the author/redactor. The point being made is that consideration of that intention as ironic adds to the multiplicity of possible responses to human experience evaluated within the context of the biblical tradition.
45 Here we enter the vexing question of the extent to which a work based on an earlier one may appropriately be used to interpret the latter. For a brief and provocative statement, see Robertson, , The Old Testament and Literary Critic, p. 11Google Scholar, and with respect to biblical materials specifically the process of canonical criticism championed by Childs.